


ricky and facty

by starsprLte



Series: coretal (cores from portal!) [2]
Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: BACK FOR ROUND TWO BABY!!!, M/M, Other, tags will be updated over time. im not really good at tagging specifics for fics in general
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26118427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsprLte/pseuds/starsprLte
Summary: a fun little sequel to spacey and wheatley! you should go and read that one first, otherwise the character development and transmission system will probably be lost on you!’Heya, hotstuff, got the time?’Too confident...’Fact, what time is it?’No, too boring...’Good evening, dear, or shalln’t I say good morning?’Ew! No! Too Wheatley!
Relationships: Adventure Core & Fact Core, Adventure Core/Fact Core, Space Core & Adventure Core & Fact Core & Wheatley, Space Core/Wheatley, they’re all friends :)
Series: coretal (cores from portal!) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1896271
Comments: 19
Kudos: 41





	1. hey, where’s fact?

**Author's Note:**

> hiii.... you can come yell at me on tumblr @/starsprLte

It was a day like any other. You know the kind of day... The kind where you can’t tell if it’s day or night, because you’re in space.. And, since you failed geography in Core School, you can’t tell where your slice of the Earth pie is based on shadows and rotations and.. uh, shapes. Or something.

So, of course, Rick did what any sensible core would do. Ring up your rosey-posey pal and ask HIM what time it was!

**[REQUESTED TRANSMISSION OUTGOING]**

Rick was already preparing what he was going to say in his head, which was weird, because he doesn’t do that when he’s about to talk to, say, Spacey or Wheatley.

 _’Heya, hotstuff, got the time?’_ Too confident... _’Fact, what time is it?’_ No, too boring... _’Good evening, dear, or shalln’t I say good morning?’_ Ew! No! Too Wheatley!

Alright, now he was starting to get bored of talking in his head, and starting to miss his totally epic and cool voice. “Man, usually by now Fact would have picked u—“

**[REQUESTED TRANSMISSION EXPIRED]**

“....That’s not like four-eyes.” Rick mumbled, his tone concerned. “He never- I don’t think that pink punctual bastard’s ever missed a call before... Is he o-” He cut himself off, not wanting anybody to hear his worries. (even though that wasn’t possible.)

Rick floated around for a while, looking behind- and above- various space rocks, trying to locate his rose colored compadre, but in the end.. He turned up empty core-handed...

He had to do some further investigation with the locals. Maybe they’ve heard tale of the bubblegum core he seeked.

First- and only- stop, the lovebirds. 

Rick located the two sharing a space rock, all cozy, and probably talking about stupid nerd stuff. He floated over to them to signal how **serious** he was being right now.

Not that he ever _wasn’t_ serious.

**[REQUESTED TRANSMISSION OUTGOING]**

Rick carefully listened, waiting for confirmation that...

**[REQUESTED TRANSMISSION ACCEPTED]**

So his transmitter isn’t broken! Fact _definitely_ missed his call!

“Hiiiiii Riiiiick!!!” “Rickjamin, pleasure as never.” Spacey and Wheatley greeted at the same time, causing Spacey to giggle. And Spacey’s giggling caused Wheatley to giggle, which caused Rick to- no!

“God, I forgot how insufferable the honeymoon stage is,” Rick muttered, almost losing track of what he was here for.

“ _Honeymoon stage?_ Rick, did you just ring us up for a quick squabble?” Wheatley questioned.

“Wh- No- A squabble?- _Ugh!_ ” He yelled. This was going to be harder than he thought... _You have to stay on track, Richard!_ “Listen to me, bakery boy. Spacey, you too.” 

Wheatley squeaked out something incredulous regarding ‘bakery boy’, but Rick managed to wrestle down the urge to get into a fun little debate with the Brit.

“This is important. Not like, stupid joke important, actually important.” Rick’s voice had gotten very intense, silencing the couple easily. “Have either of you seen the Fact Core anywhere? I, uh, need to know the time.”

Both cores ignored his poor excuse, both because it was completely false, and getting off topic wouldn’t help any of them.

Wheatley shook his head, “Nope, haven’t heard from that fella since yesterday.”

Spacey hummed in thought. “Ummmmm....... Hmm.... Uhh.. Oh! No, no.. uh... Hmmmmmmm.. AHA!”

“Spacey! Shoot!”

“He told me he was going somewhere for a little while!”

“...Not a lot to go off of-“

“AND!! And! He acted, like, uh,” Spacey paused, trying to think of the word.. “What’s it.. Nevermind. He was acting strange! And he said it like...”

Spacey turned to Wheatley, pretending to be Fact. “ _Fact:SpaceyI’mgoingtogosomewhereforawhiledon’tworryaboutmeokaythanksbye!!!_ ” Spacey blurted out in a single breath. “Which is weird for him!”

“Very weird indeed...” Rick hummed in agreement, coming to a silent conclusion. “I’m gonna find ‘im.”

“Oooh! D’you want us to help you??”

“No, no.. This is somethin’ I can-“ Rick shook his head, “Somethin’ I _gotta_ do on my own.”

Spacey replied in a sing-songy tone, “Okayyy~! Lemme know when you find him!”

Rick quietly chuckled at Spacey’s tone. “Will do, pardner.” He gave his best cowboy voice, nodding his head forward to simulate tipping a cowboy hat. He should get a hat! Not now, though!

**[DISCONNECTED FROM TRANSMISSION]**

To the untrained core, Spacey’s description of his interaction with Fact was surface-level help. ‘He’s probably just taking some time to himself,’ A fool would think.

But Rick is no fool. He has a PhD in Factology, the study of Fact. He knew alll about behavioral quirks, interests, dislikes, pet peeves, compliments...

He knew a lot about Fact, okay? Rick hated to admit it, sometimes. Even to himself! It’s hard to come to terms that he _used to_ know Fact so well. And how he... doesn’t anymore.

He was operating on an old mindset, basically. One from when they were back in the lab, not a care in the world. For Rick, anyway. There were many things for Fact to care about at the time.

Slowly, he made his way... away, from the other cores, and going lower, and lower, and lower... Sinking into the quicksand of space, trying to find somewhere that would somehow, _miraculously_ emulate an old basement stairwell.

And that’s where he found it. Space is full of anomalies, certainly.. But this? This is just weird.

What Rick had stumbled upon was a _big mother_ of an asteroid. It was like any other asteroid, floating in the starry abyss. There was one thing, however, that struck Rick as...

“Damn weird.” He mumbled as he floated outside of it. And that was just the thing. It had an _inside._ It looked like someone had taken a giant spoonful out of the middle of the rock, leaving something almost alike to a room. It was upside-down, so the inside would be almost completely dark...

Rick carefully floated down, under the.. walls, and up into the aster-..room. The asteroom. Something caught his attention, in the corner of his eye, and he looked at it.

And Fact looked back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyyy portal fandommm...long time no see, eh???? i wrote a PLOT OUTLINE this time, very fancy!
> 
> just a sidenote: im writing on my ipad for the time being, and i type VERY FAST, so some words miiiiight be missing letters (like ‘was’ being ‘waa’ or g’s being replaced with f’s.) i did my best to catch any typos, but if you see any, dont hesitate to let me know about them!
> 
> ANOTHER sidenote: not every chapter is going to have a funny little gif like this one! this might be the only one! i just could not get the idea of the asteroid down with words alone so i Had to use an image to help your brainthoughts (shoutout to my friend holy for helping me with the image formatting id die for u bro)
> 
> for those that cant see the gif cuz of mobile, its here!  
> https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/421544648570306562/748049159315128360/shidded.gif


	2. when they met

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **content warning!** the first part of this fic features fact self deprecating VERY hard. if that triggers you- or is just something you dont want to read,- you can skip to the line:
> 
> “Rick hadn’t left.”
> 
> please enjoy regardless !! for those that skipped there will be a brief description (in the end notes) of what backstory things are described in those paragraphs. <3

_Selfish, egotistic, self-centered..._

Fact Core listed off various synonyms for selfish to himself, his internal fans picking up the pace to keep his hardware cool.

A self-interested, stingy, good for nothing core, that’s all he was. Only caring to help himself, and neither of his friends. He shouldn’t even call them friends anymore. They deserve better than him, after what _he_ put both of them through.

_Stingy, greedy, freeloader..._

Spacey got hit _hard_ by that corruption, stripping away almost all of his vocabulary, leaving only his special interest in tact... Fact Core was certain that that corruption was meant to completely destroy his word library, but Spacey’s code wouldn’t allow for it to get rid of space, PROVING that he could still fend off the corruption- and, and, and Fact Core did _nothing_ to help! Not a single thing!!!

He was just sitting there, useless! He’d fought off that corruption since the day it was injected in his code and, yeah, it.. it took a long time, but he got through it! He should’ve tried to help Spacey.. But _no_ , he was too much of a coward, too concerned with self preservation to help his friend.

He’s the reason they were both corrupted to begin with- He didn’t even know why or, or _how_ Rick was corrupted...

Not to mention that he _completely_ decimated his relationship with Rick, all because he refused to properly communicate, and, maybe if he’d helped Rick they could’ve talked and, and, and so much of Fact Core’s life would be different if he had just _helped_ his _friends_ instead of being concerned with getting in trouble.

All he was good for was helping launch his friends into space while his home burned before his very eyes, and even _then_ , he was too awful to be thrown into space with them. He had to go through countless of those horrible _tests_ for MONTHS, and he deserved it! All of it! and, and he knew he did! But he still hated to think about it, WHY did he hate to think about it?! He has no _right_ to feel bad about the things he went through, his friends went through terrible things because of him!

Fact Core looked around, in a panic, because he just had to _move_ \- do _something_. And right as he turned... He saw Rick.

And he froze, like a deer in the headlights.

He didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t expecting someone to be looking for him, much less _Rick!_

**[REQUESTED TRANSMISSION INCOMING]**

He debated answering the request, but.. It would just make things worse. _He_ would make things worse, not Rick. What with his stupid ideas, his selfishness, his general disregard of how his friends felt...

Fact Core didn’t feel like he deserved to talk to Rick. Not after all he’d done.

So...

**[REQUESTED TRANSMISSION EXPIRED]**

He didn’t.

Fact Core was already anticipating what would happen next. Rick would roll his eye, leave him to rust away in an asteroid cave.

Rick would probably go and talk about how awful he is with Spacey, they’d all agree to move to a different solar system without telling him, laughing about how _selfish_ and _pathetic_ he is along the way.

And how they were glad to be rid of him, finally. After he chased them all the way to space, and, and, and then he’d fall right back down into Aperture, half dead, with _her_ , and start those terrible tests all over again, and, and, and...

Fact was starting to panic again. He could feel his internal fans picking up the pace, his optic lense starting to flicker, displaying just a tiny pink dot where the rest of his eye would usually be. He couldn’t think straight, his mind being filled with _utterly useless_ facts...

He quickly glanced over to where Rick was, to confirm his suspicions, that he was going to be left behind, forgotten, like he _deserved-_

Rick hadn’t left. 

Rick was still floating there beside him, looking concerned. He was just... sitting there, patiently waiting... for what? ...Waiting for Fact?

Fact’s eye flickered to its normal display, if only for a moment.

**[REQUESTED TRANSMISSION OUTG- REQUESTED TRANSMISSION ACCEPTED]**

“Fact: Forest fires are common in Antartica, and late at night.” Fact blurted out in that robotic, _dead_ sounding voice. It was futile to try and stop it, and Fact was trying very hard.

Rick blinked, caught off guard by the immediate misinformation. “Ah...” He kept his voice low, “One of _those_ damned days, four-eyes?”

Fact was in the middle of nodding, when he forcibly went back upright, spouting out, “Fact: 50 pigs weigh the same as a human femur.”

Rick continued, his tone a mixture of calm and concerned, “D’you want singing first or talking first?”

Fact blinked twice in rapid succession, and- “Fact: The ingredients for muffins are usually citric acid, cotton, and confetti.”

The green core paused for a moment, trying to remember what two blinks meant... One blink means song, a nod means talking, how could he have forgotten what two bl-

“A story!” Rick excitedly-and quietly- exclaimed at the sudden burst of memory. “A _quick_ story..” He corrected, remembering that Fact blinked fast, “You got it, rose.”

A pause.

“I.. I can’t think of any good adventure stories.” Rick admitted sheepishly, “How ‘bout we take a trip down memory lane? In my- uh- awesome Memory Truck, ‘course.”

Fact nodded, trying to signal ‘Go on’. “Fact: Golf balls are oversized styrofoam balls.”

“You’re the boss.”

\- - -

Let’s start with one of my favorites, eh? You ought’a remember it, too.

Rick was minding his business in the Aperture Science laboratories, having just finished up a pretty damn _epic_ adventure ‘simulation’ with the augmented reality science crew.

Rick, of course, knew ALL of the adventures were real, and totally not fake. They had to keep things under wraps here, or else... _The Bad Guys_ might find out.

We ALL know who The Bad Guys are, so I’m going to be moving on.

Since there was no other adventure to be had for the next hour, something about ‘lunch’, whatever that is... He was wandering around the halls, peeking through windows into other rooms, with all of this Sciencey Nerd Bullcrap goin’ on inside...

It was real boring to watch 99.99% of the time, but that teensy little 1% of the time where they’d accidentally make a chemical cloud explode and flood the entire room in orange? Rick thought That. Was. _Golden._

And then somethin’ strange happened. Something that would forever change Rick.

A voice interrupted Rick’s people watching, “Excuse me, sir?”

On instinct, Rick looked down, expecting to see some old guy in a labcoat ready to ask him to leave. Instead.. He saw jack! As in nothing! Zip! Nada!

He scanned the surrounding floor, looking behind himself MULTIPLE times- he was going in a circle,- when the voice piped up again.

“My eye is up here.”

Rick looked up. A-And, and then he turned around, heh..

And tried not to squeal in excitement like a little girl in a rockclimbing store. He had no idea there were other cores in this place! He thought he was the only one! There’s more cores! Mores! He should write that down.

Rick _had_ to make a good first impression, or else Mother Nature would never forgive him... Probably completely decimate him in his next adventure. He can’t have that!

Rick put on his casual cool guy voice, which was his all-the-time voice, because he’s cool. “Oh, hey, didn’t see’ya there.. Just got done fighting off twelve pterodactyls, you know how it is.”

The pink core before him sputtered in surprise, moving back slightly on his management rail. “I-I’m sorry?”

Rick chuckled, deciding not to clarify what he meant. “What brings you all the way out to this part of the jungle? I’ve never seen another core- i-in, in this area- before.” He didn’t want this nerd to think he was stupid! Of _course_ there’s other cores, why did he think he was the only one?

“I’m The Fact Sphere, programmed for the intentions of creating an all-knowing core, to save time searching things on the Worldwide Web. Each month I do a routine interview of all scientists within one section of the Aperture Science Laboratories. I’ve already interviewed every human in the Augmented Reality section, and was on my way back, when I spotted you. I was not told there was another Sphere in this area. Would you allow me to interview you as part of my monthly routine?” The pink-eyed core replied with a full on _speech_. His voice was just aaaaaalmost robotic, like he was trying to sound that way. Like a robot, I mean. Beep Boop, ya’nnow?

Rick blinked. “Uh, what?”

He sighed, “Can I interview you, please.”

“Ooohhh, sure thing, four-eyes!”

“First question: Do not call me that again.”

“Wh-“ It was now Rick’s turn to sputter in surprise, “Why not? It’s a great nickname!”

“It is not. Second question: What is your name?”

“Name’s Rick. How ‘bout yourself?”

“Wrong.” The pink core shot back without missing a beat, sounding _very_ unimpressed.

“What?!”

The bubblegum core sighed, “I asked for your core specification, otherwise known as your name. Not.. ‘Rick’.”

Rick rolled his eye, how stuffy IS this dweeb? Core specification.. Uh-huh. Rick decided to engage this flowery core in a game of back-and-forth, an ancient technique used by every culture, in order to get what they wanted. “I’ll tell you my core identifilation if you tell me your name.”

Seriously, referring to this guy as variations-of-pink core was getting old, fast!

“I’m the Fact Sp-“

“No!” Rick immediately cut him off, “Not your core identifischmation, your _naaame._ My name is Rick. You- You’ve met other scientists right?”

“Yes..” The other core started, slowly.

Rick pushed him further along, “And they’ve all had names, riiiight?”

“Jamal, Ruth, Melman...” He listed off some of the people he’d interviewed, coming to a realization.

“ _Yeeeeaaaahhhh_?”

The core looked down, almost like he was guilty. “I don’t have a ‘name’, do I?”

“Wh- Well, I mean-“

The core turned away, talking quietly now. “I-I’m sorry for wasting your time, I must go and... think.”

Oh, oh _now_ you’ve gone and done it, Richard. You really went and screwed this one up, you went and gave a poor core an identity crisis. Great going, spinach man.

Rick debated his- This joke’s gettin’ old by now, we all know I don’t _think!_ \- “You stop right there, buster!” He yelled, in his most authoritative voice. “I wasn’t finished! You may not have been assigned a name, but that doesn’t mean you gotta live nameless!”

The saddened core stopped moving, and turned around to face Rick once more. He lifted his eye slowly.

Rick quickly approached the core, no longer yelling in his face. “Listen, no fancy junk _~scientist~_ ,” The way he said scientist was very silly, just so you know, “Gave me my name. Y’know who did?”

“.. Who?”

“Me, baby!” Rick spun to add a bit of showmanship, a bit of flair. “My full name’s Richard L. Armstrong, but I prefer to just be called Rick.”

“...Even though you chose the name ‘Richard’?” The rose-eyed core asked, now sounding less sad, and more just... Baffled. “That- What?”

“I know, right?!” Rick was almost laughing at this point, “I mean, yer name doesn’t have’ta be some _big long freaky thing_ if you don’t want it to be. Like, like- What’s your favorite thing? In the world.”

The core hummed in thought. He also had a pretty good hum, to be fair. “Probably correct information, and data spreadsheets.”

... Nerd.

“Well, then, uh..” Rick blanked for a moment, and then remembered the core’s idemlitication thing, “Your name could literally just be _Fact_ , if you really wanted it to! There’s really nothing stopping you from naming yourself that.”

“Fact...” The pink panther core echoed, and then brightened up, “I like that name. Fact, the Fact Sphere.”

“Heh, yeah, it really suits you. Maybe even a bit more than four-eyes!”

The pi- Fact core stared at Rick, unimpressed and unblinking.

And then they both started laughing, at a joke that was unspoken, but I can promise you, it was hilarious. Rick tried not to notice how _damn beepy_ Fact’s laugh was, it was like the guy’d never laughed before!

Rick was now determined to change that.

“I-I still want that interview, by the way.” Rick said, catching his core-breath. “I have _so_ many jungle stories. Oh, and desert stories. There’s even a few loose _city_ stories in there, with DINOSAURS!”

“A-Alright, alright, slow down, Rick,” Fact responded, still trying to calm his fit of giggles.

Rick, for once in his life, stopped and waited for Fact. He was _very_ happy, and his eye showed it!

“Okay. Question one...”

\- - -

Rick drew the story to a quiet end, looking to Fact for any comments, questions, but mainly, he was still just concerned. “Did that help any?”

...

...

Patiently, Rick waited for a response. Fact was just staring at him, unmoving. He supposed Fact was still immersed in the story.

..Rick wished he could’ve waited patiently like this more often, back home.

“Fact:,” Fact started, catching Rick’s attention immediately. “Y-Your impression of me hasn’t improved at all.” He laughed softly between his words. “Fact: You made me sound like such a nerd!”

“Pfft, yeah, and? What’s so wrong with that?”

“Fact: You’re right! _That’s_ what’s wrong!! I-I do not sound like a nerd!”

Rick chuckled, happy to see Fact in better spirits. “D’awww, c’mon, didn’t you use to play Dragons and Dungeons?”

“Fact: I _read_ informative texts and _listened_ to demonstrations of D&D, you metal sports fiend!”

“Ugh, you even call it D&D! Such a nerd move- as expected, from The Nerd Core,”

Fact beepily laughed at ‘Nerd Core’, and Rick had never been happier.

“Fact: Rick?”

“ _Yeeeeaaaah_?”

“Fact: ... Thanks for sticking with me.”

Rick paused for a moment, and this time, actually did debate his options. He went with the honest option. “‘Course. It’s the least I could do, and.. You deserve to be comforted.”

“Fact: Mhm,” Fact quietly agreed, tapping his side against Rick lightly.

They floated in contented silence for a while, enjoying each other’s company.

Eventually, Fact broke the silence first. “Fact: Hey, do you want to hear one of my favorite memories from when we were back on Earth?”

Rick responded sleepily, “Gopher it, four-eyes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> desc for those who may have skipped:  
> fact is feeling awful for the way he acted after being corrupted in aperture, blaming himself for everything that’s gone wrong, and thinking that he deserves everything bad that happens to him. he’s surprised when he sees that rick is still there with him, because he was expecting the opposite. 
> 
> **backstory details (in no particular order):**  
>  -fact does not know how or why rick was corrupted  
> -fact blames himself for his and rick’s relationship falling out, due to not properly communicating.  
> -spacey’s corruption was probably meant to completely destroy his vocabulary code. however, since his special interest in space was so strong, the corruption didn’t touch it.
> 
> also oh god this is twice as long as a normal chapter... o_O


End file.
